Often, generosity will stay in the background, not wishing to be noticed. Imagine a child staying behind her family and friends to give the birds a drink at a fountain on a hot day in the park. Then, when the child has left, birds frolic in the fount of the child’s generosity.

And yet, kindness will often be greeted by suspicion. Seed tossed for birds in the park will be consumed at a safe distance, the birds ever wary of human intention. Some birds will squawk angrily as if indignant about any human presence.

Knowing this, where is gratitude but in the grace of presence? “Grace us with your presence” is a phrase that says much. It greets with gratitude, if free from the curled lip of cynicism and condescension. It expresses thanks on a deeper level… perhaps a simpler level, one not bound by debtor-creditor accounting (“I gave you something. You owe me your thanks.”).

Today, words and actions are bumping at apparent cross-purposes. It may take a moment or two to get on the same mission or to elaborate on how the ideas in question may be put to work, however, seen as an act of gratitude, all dispute can work out well. To not see it this way, would be like denying thirsty birds a drink on a hot day.